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![[parent]](https://images.physicslibrary.org/images/uparrow.png) Viewing Message
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| ``How does a penny fall?''
by arkolbus on 2009-06-21 14:23:38 |
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| I stumbled across this article and am not familiar with the website. Forgive me if this is the wrong location for this post.
This is a wonderful article on free-fall and the significance of air resistance and the concept of terminal velocity. I noticed that in this article that the area of the penny is taken as the area of the penny's face. The assumption is made that the penny would fall with its face perpendicular to the direction of motion.
Is this assumption valid? It seems to me that the penny is more likely to fall on its edge, which presents a smaller cross-section and would result in a higher terminal velocity. In the "flat" orientation presented in the article, the drag forces on the penny would be in equilibrium over the face of the penny, but this would not be a stable equilibrium. It seems that the "edge" orientation would be a more stable equilibrium, and hence be favored.
The article does acknowledge that the situation is more complicated and the penny would tumble, but I'm curious as to the most likely orientation during fall. Would the penny fall flat, on edge, or is there so much tumbling that there is no favored orientation? |
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